the real keys to cutting gasoline/oil consumption
#16
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presentation was good, kept it neutral. Basically he said the regulations are dumb, need to be revamped, and it needs to be more market driven. Good luck getting the govt to revamp itself and stay out of the way. They want green energy to succeed no matter how much its going to cost the taxpayer.
#17
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One of the most notorious government price-controls, of course, is taxes. All else equal, the more they tax, the more gas costs at retail-level. The most extreme examples, of course, are in Europe.
#18
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not going to work if govt throws subsidies to certain forms of energy, obstructs other forms of energy by denying drilling, unleashing the EPA goons, etc. Then you have the environazis that try to scaremonger certain forms of energy and govt caves into their demands.
People really need to stop trying to run to the govt to solve our energy needs. All govt can do is force people to do certain things. That's good for us? Politicians have been promising this for the past 40 years yet our reliance on foreign energy has kept going up. The free market is far more effective. Its too bad we dont have a free market anymore with all the govt meddling. Yes lets trust the people who gave us Solyndra, the Volt, the bailouts, and cant even deliver a piece of mail profitablely to run our energy policy.
People really need to stop trying to run to the govt to solve our energy needs. All govt can do is force people to do certain things. That's good for us? Politicians have been promising this for the past 40 years yet our reliance on foreign energy has kept going up. The free market is far more effective. Its too bad we dont have a free market anymore with all the govt meddling. Yes lets trust the people who gave us Solyndra, the Volt, the bailouts, and cant even deliver a piece of mail profitablely to run our energy policy.
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Free market cares only about short term profits, they dont care about people... if free market is to decide then gas would be $15 and you would be paying it.
thats because free market does not exist
our free market created google, apple, microsoft, facebook, without government 'help'. yes the govt funded the intitial internet build out but NO ONE could predict what would happen - the beauty of a free market. those who claim to 'know it all' (like govt planners) are sure to hugely limit possibilities or fail completely.
corporations are ones that make trillions on us and they continiously try to make system work in their own favour... if there was no government to stop them, we would all be slaves.
agreed!
How about letting us extract the energy we are sitting on. Oh wait the govt doesnt let you or makes more expensive with the EPA. Oil and gas production on private property is booming now, but oops on federal lands it has been falling. Wont let you produce more oil but they claim they want energy independence. What a joke. The real reason is to appease the radical environmentalists and hinder green energy's competitor. This is why you dont want govt's picking winners and losers. The taxpayers lose in the end. If the govt was so smart and knew what consumers wanted, why doesn't it produce products to sell to consumers itself? They don't and they waste billions of dollars on boondoggles doing it.
#19
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On the hopeful side, 400-volt chargers are being jointly-developed by electric utilities and auto-companies that will give a full-range charge in only 20-30 minutes. That sure beats 8-12 hours with conventional 120-volt outlets.....but we're going to need a whole nationwide supply of them if electric cars are going to be feasible.
#20
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agreed! if govt allowed people to run natural gas powered cars for example, it would encourage an infrastructure to develop. as of right now it can't.
electric cars aren't the only answer.
amen.
govt does have a role in regulation, but not picking in trying to pick winners and losers. they are proof positive the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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amen.
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#21
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People aren't really comprehending the problem. You want one. Spec one out and go buy one. Here's a link to spec one out now. And if you're a company there are a quite a number of CNG fueled trucks in cities running around out there.
Want to fill up? Check the map
Sure it's not mainstream (just like Hydrogen cars) yet but that's the whole point. It isn't illegal it's simply costly and our free market isn't very good at taking risks (gotta keep next quarters profits up) for the long term.
There's a lot of misinformation or lack of understanding of a fairly complicated issue. There's no "easy" way to solve the issue though helping educate the market about the inability to trade off oil and coal (can't run your car on coal and can't make plastic from it either). The video was interesting but after the good start turned into more of a marketing exercise IMO.
#22
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according to the video it's not legal to CONVERT an existing car to cng. but thanks for info on tha civic-ng and map. ![Thumb Up](https://www.clublexus.com/forums/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif)
lol at not taking risks - what do you think oil and gas exploration is, risk-free?
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It isn't illegal it's simply costly and our free market isn't very good at taking risks (gotta keep next quarters profits up) for the long term.
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#23
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Ummm... what?
People aren't really comprehending the problem. You want one. Spec one out and go buy one. Here's a link to spec one out now. And if you're a company there are a quite a number of CNG fueled trucks in cities running around out there.
Want to fill up? Check the map
Sure it's not mainstream (just like Hydrogen cars) yet but that's the whole point. It isn't illegal it's simply costly and our free market isn't very good at taking risks (gotta keep next quarters profits up) for the long term.
There's a lot of misinformation or lack of understanding of a fairly complicated issue. There's no "easy" way to solve the issue though helping educate the market about the inability to trade off oil and coal (can't run your car on coal and can't make plastic from it either). The video was interesting but after the good start turned into more of a marketing exercise IMO.
People aren't really comprehending the problem. You want one. Spec one out and go buy one. Here's a link to spec one out now. And if you're a company there are a quite a number of CNG fueled trucks in cities running around out there.
Want to fill up? Check the map
Sure it's not mainstream (just like Hydrogen cars) yet but that's the whole point. It isn't illegal it's simply costly and our free market isn't very good at taking risks (gotta keep next quarters profits up) for the long term.
There's a lot of misinformation or lack of understanding of a fairly complicated issue. There's no "easy" way to solve the issue though helping educate the market about the inability to trade off oil and coal (can't run your car on coal and can't make plastic from it either). The video was interesting but after the good start turned into more of a marketing exercise IMO.
![Big Grin](https://www.clublexus.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
I mean I can appreciate it but its really not that great.
#24
Out of Warranty
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Excellent talk!
If we would unleash the regulatory restrictions on fuel and transport, truly amazing changes in our use of fossil fuels would emerge.
But there's another facet to this question: In any analysis of fuel cost, we have to strip taxes out of the cost of a gallon of gas. Gas taxes have been used as "user fees" by our states, supposedly to pay for our highway infrastructure. It's actually pretty fair, seeing as drivers of large, heavy, inefficient cars will pay proportionately more taxes - well, until you get down to the lowest income families who generally can't afford the newest hybrid or electric car and must be content with a 20+ year old beater for transportation. There's something the guilty rich can weep over for the coming years - although no real solution will be forthcoming. Lumping government greed into the pump price of gas is both unrealistic and unfair, turning our oil companies, or at least their distributors into tax collection agencies.
Another way of looking at gas costs is that, expressed in terms of current dollars, if you strip out the taxes on each gallon, gasoline, since the 1920's has cost pretty close to the same throughout the years. Sure, a gallon of gas cost about 30¢ per gallon in 1920* - and we in America weren't burning a whole lot of it yet. Still that's about $2.91 in 2005 dollars. From 1920 to 2005, the average pump price for gas (less taxes) has been between $2.81 (1920) and $1.27 (1999). Generally, the trend has been toward slightly cheaper gas over the past 85 years, although there have been market spikes, largely caused by supply issues driven by geopolitical interests overseas.
So what can we do NOW to relieve our bleeding economy and job base? First, let's go after the regulations that require us to burn gasoline and only gasoline in our automobiles. Flex-fuel vehicles are available but not heavily marketed. Let's change that. For a time, synfuels are going to be expensive, until we can develop the production and refining facilities to move them into large-scale production. No single fuel is going to drag us out from under the situation we've gotten ourselves into by ignoring the legislation that's gone on around us. Let's make some rational technologically and economically sound energy policy decisions.
If we can't haul a nuclear or coal-fired powerplant in our cars, let's reserve high energy-density fossil and synfuel blends for our transportation needs. Natural gas burns a lot cleaner than most available coal plants, so let's use that now while we develop wind and solar resources and bring them online as their technology makes them competitive. Meanwhile we can investigate geothermal, tidal, and even cheaper means of oil recovery in an organized and efficient manner. There is no need to panic over these changes, if we manage them properly, we can easily provide for our energy needs now and into the future without crashing the environment or breaking the bank.
* http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehicles...t_fotw426.html
If we would unleash the regulatory restrictions on fuel and transport, truly amazing changes in our use of fossil fuels would emerge.
But there's another facet to this question: In any analysis of fuel cost, we have to strip taxes out of the cost of a gallon of gas. Gas taxes have been used as "user fees" by our states, supposedly to pay for our highway infrastructure. It's actually pretty fair, seeing as drivers of large, heavy, inefficient cars will pay proportionately more taxes - well, until you get down to the lowest income families who generally can't afford the newest hybrid or electric car and must be content with a 20+ year old beater for transportation. There's something the guilty rich can weep over for the coming years - although no real solution will be forthcoming. Lumping government greed into the pump price of gas is both unrealistic and unfair, turning our oil companies, or at least their distributors into tax collection agencies.
Another way of looking at gas costs is that, expressed in terms of current dollars, if you strip out the taxes on each gallon, gasoline, since the 1920's has cost pretty close to the same throughout the years. Sure, a gallon of gas cost about 30¢ per gallon in 1920* - and we in America weren't burning a whole lot of it yet. Still that's about $2.91 in 2005 dollars. From 1920 to 2005, the average pump price for gas (less taxes) has been between $2.81 (1920) and $1.27 (1999). Generally, the trend has been toward slightly cheaper gas over the past 85 years, although there have been market spikes, largely caused by supply issues driven by geopolitical interests overseas.
So what can we do NOW to relieve our bleeding economy and job base? First, let's go after the regulations that require us to burn gasoline and only gasoline in our automobiles. Flex-fuel vehicles are available but not heavily marketed. Let's change that. For a time, synfuels are going to be expensive, until we can develop the production and refining facilities to move them into large-scale production. No single fuel is going to drag us out from under the situation we've gotten ourselves into by ignoring the legislation that's gone on around us. Let's make some rational technologically and economically sound energy policy decisions.
If we can't haul a nuclear or coal-fired powerplant in our cars, let's reserve high energy-density fossil and synfuel blends for our transportation needs. Natural gas burns a lot cleaner than most available coal plants, so let's use that now while we develop wind and solar resources and bring them online as their technology makes them competitive. Meanwhile we can investigate geothermal, tidal, and even cheaper means of oil recovery in an organized and efficient manner. There is no need to panic over these changes, if we manage them properly, we can easily provide for our energy needs now and into the future without crashing the environment or breaking the bank.
* http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehicles...t_fotw426.html
#25
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#26
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There are several issues I have with what he was saying. He talked about all the cars in the parking lot that people drove to be at his talk. If all of those vehicles were powered by natural gas as he suggests, it would be an incredible hazard. Just a few cars leaking fuel could easily create a small bomb like explosion. In fact many underground parking structures forbid CNG for this very reason.
He also fails to mention that the energy contained in a gallon of some of the alternative fuels is less, in some cases much less than gasoline. So even if it was $2/gallon, you'd need more of it, negating the savings. And these fuels don't do so well in cold weather either. And he also does not talk about the fact that the sheer volume of oil we consume (read energy) is tremendous, there is simply no way we could replace even 20% of that with alternative fuels currently (the exception might be natural gas). And look at the ethanol initiatives currently, they at BEST energy net zero, but most likely they consume more energy than they produce.
Now I am not against moving away from oil consumption, in fact I am all for it. But people need to understand that gasoline is a tremendously potent fuel, and modern engines are extremely adept at getting the most out it. You move into other fuels and engine power goes down, fuel tanks need to be larger, refueling will take longer and be less convenient. These factors make it a harder sell to the average car buyer. The bottom line is there is simply NO equal fuel replacement for gasoline currently, none.
But we still must slowly transition away from it, I personally think the only way to do that is to dump the internal combustion engine for good and go electric. It will take decades to do this, but the electric car is better in so many ways. You have almost zero maintenance, vastly less complicated drivetrain, and the ability to generate electricity from just about any fuel source you can think of.
But until the electric car is as good or better than the fuel burner (or vastly cheaper) people will take the petrol car every time.
He also fails to mention that the energy contained in a gallon of some of the alternative fuels is less, in some cases much less than gasoline. So even if it was $2/gallon, you'd need more of it, negating the savings. And these fuels don't do so well in cold weather either. And he also does not talk about the fact that the sheer volume of oil we consume (read energy) is tremendous, there is simply no way we could replace even 20% of that with alternative fuels currently (the exception might be natural gas). And look at the ethanol initiatives currently, they at BEST energy net zero, but most likely they consume more energy than they produce.
Now I am not against moving away from oil consumption, in fact I am all for it. But people need to understand that gasoline is a tremendously potent fuel, and modern engines are extremely adept at getting the most out it. You move into other fuels and engine power goes down, fuel tanks need to be larger, refueling will take longer and be less convenient. These factors make it a harder sell to the average car buyer. The bottom line is there is simply NO equal fuel replacement for gasoline currently, none.
But we still must slowly transition away from it, I personally think the only way to do that is to dump the internal combustion engine for good and go electric. It will take decades to do this, but the electric car is better in so many ways. You have almost zero maintenance, vastly less complicated drivetrain, and the ability to generate electricity from just about any fuel source you can think of.
But until the electric car is as good or better than the fuel burner (or vastly cheaper) people will take the petrol car every time.
#27
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With that being said, modern diesel engines are very picky, and I personally would never use anything but commercially available diesel fuel because of the risk of damaging exhaust system and sooting up the engine. I own a 2005 Ford diesel, and that already is very picky and requires a lot of maintenance - I can't even imagine how picky and how much maintenance is required for most modern diesels.
#28
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Would you want your neighbor to modify his car to run on CNG, with a loose gas tank rocking around in the trunk, and him refilling the tank by a hacked hose running from his stove?
#29
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A lot of people dont know that Chevron bought patent (from ECD) for large Nimh batteries in cars that prevented Toyota from having Nimh based plugins for a lot less.
In an interview with The Economist, Ovshinsky subscribed to the former view. "I think we at ECD made a mistake of having a joint venture with an oil company, frankly speaking. And I think it's not a good idea to go into business with somebody whose strategies would put you out of business, rather than building the business."[15]
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Critics also argue that historical evidence demonstrates the willingness of the oil industry to engage in such anti-competitive behavior. In 1949, the U.S. Supreme Court found Chevron (then known as Standard Oil of California) guilty of conspiring to buy and dismantle the Los Angeles electric street car system, in what became known as the Great American streetcar scandal.[16] In an effort to prevent the passage of California's zero emission mandates in late 1993 and early 1994, oil companies also funded a series of advertisements that questioned the viability of electric vehicles.[4]
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Critics also argue that historical evidence demonstrates the willingness of the oil industry to engage in such anti-competitive behavior. In 1949, the U.S. Supreme Court found Chevron (then known as Standard Oil of California) guilty of conspiring to buy and dismantle the Los Angeles electric street car system, in what became known as the Great American streetcar scandal.[16] In an effort to prevent the passage of California's zero emission mandates in late 1993 and early 1994, oil companies also funded a series of advertisements that questioned the viability of electric vehicles.[4]
#30
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With that being said, modern diesel engines are very picky, and I personally would never use anything but commercially available diesel fuel because of the risk of damaging exhaust system and sooting up the engine. I own a 2005 Ford diesel, and that already is very picky and requires a lot of maintenance - I can't even imagine how picky and how much maintenance is required for most modern diesels.
Just out of curiosity......does your 2005 Ford truck-diesel require the low-sulfur fuel and/or the urea-solution? MeThinks probably not, as diesel-emissions back then generally did not apply to trucks.
Last edited by mmarshall; 09-10-12 at 07:35 PM.